Its good to be ranked again but at this point the polls dont even matter anymore. We can t play for the national chamionship and the BIG will not get more then one team into the BCS this season. Win the BIG and play in the Rose Bowl thats the goal!! Go Blue

Always nice to know how the rest of the country sees us, but our ranking is completely irrelevant for the rest of the year. No at-large BCS, no NT game. Win our next 3 games, and it will be pretty tough not to make it to the B1G Championship.

Only goal right now is Pasadena. Based on how we looked yesterday, I really think we're the (eligible) team to beat right now.

No kidding. If you want to make a anti-SEC argument, Florida's the team. Their D looks great but the offense is merely a suggestion. South Carolina looks balanced and solid across the board. I think they could make a game of it against Alabama if the make the SEC title game.

LSU was clearly wildly overrated based on preseason expectations, so I wasn't too impressed by Florida's win yesterday, and Florida had already struggled against A&M, Tennessee and Bowling Green.

Meanwhile, Notre Dame pasted MSU, Miami and Navy, and beat Michigan and Purdue, while WVU clearly has the best offense in the country. I'd put both Notre Dame and WVU over Florida based on what they've shown so far.

The main problem with WVU is that the defense is beyond atrocious. In the past two weeks they have given up 108 points. That's 2 more points than Alabama gave up all of last year. They don't have to be the best defense in football but it would be great if they could at least try. They may actually be the opposite of Florida and LSU in this matter. I guess what I'm saying is if one of your units is going to be woefully deficient it should probably not be your defense.

I don't even think you can say Oregon is mediocre on defense. They play so fast that teams are bound to get more possessions, which equals more yards and more points during most games.

Oregon's defensive numbers:

44th in total defense (359 YPG)

36th in yards per rush (3.52 YPC)

9th in yards per pass (5.4 YPA)

14th in yards per play (4.55 YPP)

30th in scoring defense (20 PPG)

Looking at their individual games:

Arkansas State: 50-3 before ASU scored their first touchdown, ended up 57-34

Fresno State: 35-6 before FSU scored their first touchdown, ended up 42-25

Tennessee Tech: Did score a touchdown before the game was out of hand, but the game ended up 63-14 and they had 177 total yard of offense

Arizona: Regardless of the ill-will RR garners round here, shutting out Arizona is no joke this year. 49-0

Washington State: This is the only real lapse, with the game 23-19 at the half. However, defense allowed only one touchdown after the half, finished up 51-26

Washington: 21-0 before Washington scored a touchdown, 38-7 before their second and 52-14 before Washington added a touchdown with 30 seconds left to finish 52-21.

Oregon's defense is no joke and if they were to meet Alabama, its more than likely the key to the game would be their ability to stop Alabama's offense and their huge offensive line rather than Alabama's defense vs Oregon's offense.

Its also why I wouldn't bother taking West Virginia seriously as a contender, even if their offense might technically be a bit better than the Oregon offense.

They weren't ranked last week, they have 1 (frankly unimpressive) win against a seemingly decent team in BSU, 1 expected win against Central, 2 losses against good teams (that exposed their completely inept offense), and barely squeaked by two doormats of the FBS in EMU and IU. To be honest, I'm not sure why there's someone out there that thinks they should be ranked at all. They're simply not a good team.

What's sobering is that MSU win against BSU is the best OOC victory for the Big Ten this year. Even that wouldn't be so bad if there hadn't been all the games with crappy teams some of the other members lost.

I continue to be amazed that some of these SEC teams are ranked. Auburn is one overtime game from being 0-5 and yet Mississippi St. is seemingly getting the bump for beating them handily. Ignore the fact that they haven't played anoyne else (Kentucky barely counts as competent SEC).

Considering UM's two losses are to the #1 and #7 teams in the country, let's hope that they continue to play this well going forward and make it to the Rose Bowl.

Well we are the top 2-loss team. As soon as the media realizes that the SEC is just really top-heavy, hopefully the polls won't be as SEC crazy. After Alabama, any SEC team can win any game they play, not because they're good, but because none of the teams are that much better than each other. Except Kentucky. Stick to basketball.

I feel underrated here. Losses to 1 and 7, and 7 in a turnover fest where we probably outplayed them. Nothing we have done indicates we aren't a top 15 team. Now I think from watching us we are pretty turrible but resume wise I don't see why we aren't higher.

indicates we aren't a top 15 team. Our game against Alabama indicates we aren't a top 15 team.

I understand that everyone looks bad against Alabama, but that was not the performance of a top 15 team; also, we looked atrocious against Air Force. Regardless of all the excuses we've made about the difficulty in preparing for Air Force's offense, they are NOT a good football team.

We looked great against Purdue, and little can be made of our game against UMass.

In short, I disagree with you. Top 25 team? I can buy that, but it's a little high given what we've done so far. Top 15 team is a big stretch.

I actually think this is a pretty accurate ranking. Yes we are 3-2 but those two losses were to top 10 teams away from home. One was a man handling but the other was a game where we were dominant but ended up literally giving away the game to the other team.

A loss is still a loss which is reflected in our current ranking. Our three victories were against two solid teams and one baby seal but for the most part they were convincing.

Polls don't matter too much but it is certainly better to be perennially ranked rather then unranked.

Only Michigan and Ohio are ranked. Welcome back to the Big 2, Little 8.

The back-to-back MSU and Nebraska games will likely be the defining moments of the season. If we can knock both of them off, which is very doable, I'd say we have likely punched our ticket to Indy. Still, I guess we can't write off Northwestern.

Alabama gave a nationally televised thrashing in all facets. And Notre Dame harnessed Denard and revealed the ineffectiveness of the offense on national television too. Michigan's offense has been far too one-dimensional, even in the games won handily. As much as I love seeing Denard do what he does best (tucking and running), the offense needs to step it up.

Relying solely on Denard's running is unsustainable long term and won't be enough to stay at #25. He's not going to hold up through the B1G season running 20+ times a games. As much as I don't want to see him throw the ball (still smarting from ND), Michigan needs to find a way to establish a passing game to keep teams honest and open things up for Fitz & Rawls.

I don't agree with this statement AT ALL. The problem isn't running Denard, the problem is we're not running him enough. You see the instant impact he has when he tucks the ball. The other thing I think people are discounting is the fact that he isn't taking many hits. This is not 2010 Denard, it's rare that he will be involved in a physical tackle anymore. I remember specifically watching for it during the Purdue game and seeing him just go out of bounds or dive early to avoid hits. He's not going to wear down from these type of hits, if anything I think he gets beat up more in the pocket than running the ball.

With the players we have on offense, the whole game should start by running the ball, either with Fitz or Denard. Our passing should not be the main part of our offense, it should just be something to threaten the defense and use in late game situations. Look at the game against Purdue. Yes, I know it's Purdue, but the passing was more of just a threat then anything else.

I don't think running Denard more is key to sustained success. Michigan's offense is becoming incredibly one dimensional and I don't mean running versus passing. I mean running Denard versus anything else. Michigan needs to be able to run Fitz and Rawls effectively, but the passing game is not keeping teams honest and opponents are lining up and begging Denard to beat them. Yes, that's worked and may very well work well enough to get through a chunk of the B1G season, but you're not going to convince me its sustainable. Successfully running Fitz & Rawls is sustainable and to do that Michigan really needs to develop enough of a passing game to at least threaten other teams and loosen things up front.

So let me get this straight Dan. You don't want Denard to run because you think he's going to get hurt --despite the fact that he's not missed significant time since 2010 -- and you don't want to see him throw. Sure am glad that YOU are not the OC for Michigan.

Face it, Michigan's offense revolves around Denard. He's a great runner and a fine passer -- he just had a bad game versus ND in the face of a gap blitzes. I am not disagreeing that Michigan needs to get the RB more involved. But, all the team can do is what is can do. Denard isn't going to get hurt, and he's going to throw. Deal with it.

I think you're mistaking my intent. The reluctance to pass expressed in my post is more of the moment, being fresh off the ND game and was intended a bit tongue in cheek. Denard definitely needs to throw more to keep teams honest and open things up for the backs. More balance in his use would serve the rest of the Michigan offense well and make Denard even more dangerous a runner.

Florida at #4 is to high. They beat a over hyped LSU team that almost lost to Auburn. They will come down to earth soon enough, but this type of thing happens when a conference wins 6 straight national championships. The SEC is Bama head and shoulders above everyone else. Even though S.Carolina looked very good last night, Georgia's probably just not that good. J. Clowney did look like a straight animal coming off the edge. It will interesting to see them play Bama.

Now that TCU has to play real opponents... I think the bashing they took from Gee and others (well, more "other") about their schedule might hold some water. I know they didnt have Pachall yesterday, but that can't alone explain how woeful they looked. Now they have to play a real conference schedule every week, and needless to say, they aren't going 11-1 or anything like that. They probably would get beat by 7 teams in the BigXII(10).

Boise State, at least, was smart enough to lateral into a new conference that utterly sucks, and is going to get worse.

I might put them there. To be fair to ND, they have one of the few schedules in CFB this year that I think can trurly suss out how good of a team they are. So far they've been some pretty good teams, and if they can continue it against Stanford/USC/Oklahoma, I'd be willing to say we lost to a top 5 team, even if I'm not sure I'd say that during our game against them.

Regardless how "good" ND is, the fact of the matter is they've got wins over UM, MSU, Purdue, and The U. At some point you've got to rank a team for what it has already accomplished, not for what it's capable of doing (or not doing) in the future.

I'm amazed Penn State isn't getting more love. I understand their not being ranked, but they're riding a lot of momentum, and have won 4 in a row, including beating a top-25 Northwestern yesterday. Instead they get 1 AP poll vote.

Outside of Michigan, I think they are the one team left on OSU's schedule that can beat them.